Jean Robert Macean (left); Terry and Brenda Aultman (right).
A Florida grand jury has indicted a man for allegedly stabbing a Dakota Beach couple who were on their way home from Bike Week festivities. Jean Robert Macean Jr., 32, faces two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon. Police have suggested that he killed Terry Aultman, 48, and Brenda Aultman, 55, at random.
An arraignment is scheduled for next Tuesday, court documents indicate.
Bystanders found the Aultmans early Sunday, March 6 about a mile from their house. Officers released images of a person of interest. It turned out to be Macean, prosecutors say. He arrived in Dakota Beach from Orlando the day before by bus and then left the day of the murders, Police Chief Jakari Young previously said in a press conference. The chief later claimed Macean confessed to the killings.
Court records show that the defendant was arrested in Orange County.
“This isn’t real,” Sarah Turner, who is Brenda’s daughter and Terry’s stepdaughter, said at the press conference. “It doesn’t feel real, and I don’t think it will ever feel real. I lost my best friend. My mother was the most amazing, caring, giving, loving, selfless person in the world. And to top it off, she was as funny as could be, and so was her husband. They were both wonderful, and happy, and loving, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them. And I just to thank every single one of you for all of the work you put in to help get this person off the–I’m sorry, he’s not a person–a monster, get this monster off of the streets so that nobody else would get hurt or have to deal with the pain and the destruction that this has caused so many people’s lives that knew them.”
A charging affidavit obtained by Law&Crime says Daytona Beach police officers responded to the intersection of North Wild Olive Avenue and Riverview Boulevard on the Sunday in question.
“While on scene, units located a male and female laying in the front yard” of a nearby residence,” the document says. “Both victims were covered in blood and each of them appeared to be suffering from deep lacerations to their throats.”
Brenda’s right shoe was fifteen feet away from her body in a set of bushes, the affidavit says. A purse, two bicycles, and a clump of Terry’s hair were nearby. A “large amount of blood” covered the grass “under and around the bicycles.”
Marks on the ground suggested that the bodies had been “dragged across the sidewalk and placed in the front yard of the residence” where the officers located the victims, the court paperwork continues.
Witnesses happened upon the bodies and called the police, the affidavit adds. Surveillance camera footage captured pictures of a suspect with an “unusual, slow gait,” and police publicized it in hopes of tracking down the man portrayed therein.
A third witness came forward to say that he believed he had interacted with the suspect and provided images to the police, the court papers add.
The police wrote that they obtained other video which showed the suspect walking up to the victims in an apparent attempt to catch up to them. Other footage, presumably from after the killings, shows the suspect with what police theorize to be blood on his pants, the court documents allege.
The authorities tracked down the defendant’s name after video also placed him at a Johnny Rockets restaurant in Daytona Beach, according to the paperwork. He allegedly paid with a credit card bearing his name, and he signed the receipt with the initials “JM,” the authorities wrote.
Macean remains held without bond at the Volusia County Jail.
Read the complete indictment and the affidavit below:
Aaron Keller contributed reporting.
[Mugshot via Volusia County Jail; image of the Aultmans vis Daytona Beach Police Department]
